1. Smoking in Jordan Kawkab Shishani, PhD
I am an assistant professor at the Hashemite University in Jordan <a href=“ and my specialty is community health nursing. I have done research in several areas such as air pollution, self administration of chronic medications, and smoking behaviors among adolescents.
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2. Describe effects of smoking on health
Objectives
Describe effects of smoking on health
List reasons for smoking
among Jordanian adolescents
Describe the ways that assist in fighting smoking at the primary level of prevention
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3. Worldwide, there are 1.1 billion smokers; of them:
Smoking in the World
Worldwide, there are billion smokers; of them:
800 million live in developing countries
300 million live in developed countries
It is known that smoking is associated with:
Death of one individual every 8 seconds
Death of 12, 000 individuals every day
Death of 4 million individuals annually
Experimental as well as descriptive studies confirm that smoking causes:
Cancers
Cardiovascular diseases
Smoking consequences are overwhelming both on the individual and national level. Morbidity and mortality associated with smoking means an increase in health expenditure; in addition to the suffering of the affected individuals as well their families
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4. What is Tobacco
Tobacco is a broad-leafed plant of the nightshade family. The plant can grow to a height of 1 to 1.5 meters.
Tobacco is smoked in cigars, cigarettes, and hubble- bubble.
There are about 4,000 chemicals that the body absorbs from smoking; some of which are:
Nicotine
Tar
Ammonia
Hydrogen cyanide
Tobacco products, although they come in different forms, are all similar in harmfulness.
Many believe that the hubble-bubble (argeelah), which is popular in the Middle East, is harmless. This is certainly false. One session of Argeelah is equivalent to smoking cigarettes.
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5. Cigarette Components: Nicotine
Nicotine is an alkaloid, colorless and rapidly absorbed from the lungs
Reaches the brain within 8 minutes
Highly toxic (50 mg of nicotine can kill an adult if given intravenously)
Each cigarette contains between 3-8mg of nicotine
Effects of Nicotine:
Addiction
Constriction in blood vessels (increase in blood pressure)
Platelet coagulation (blood clots)
Passes through the umbilical cord to fetus’s blood
Passes through breast milk
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6. Cigarette Components: Tar
Carcinogenic, viscid, and brown to black in color
50% of it remains in the lungs and bronchus
If swallowed can cause gastrointestinal cancers
Causes cell mutation, which leads to lung cancers
Experimental studies on mice demonstrated that when tar was rubbed into mice’s skin the mice developed skin cancer
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7. Cigarette Components: CO (carbon monoxide)
Highly toxic gas
Binds to the hemoglobin in the blood
CO prevents oxygen from binding with hemoglobin. Instead it binds to hemoglobin causing:
Hypoxia
Shortage in the oxygen supply to body cells especially the brain and the heart
Other components of Cigarettes:
Ammonia: causes irritation in eyes and upper respiratory tract
Hydrogen Cyanide: highly toxic
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8. Passive Smoking
Passive smoking is when a non-smoking person inhales smoke involuntarily; this is also called second hand smoking
Passive smoking effects on health is similar to active smoking effects
Passive smoking effects on children:
Asthma
Respiratory infections
Acute and chronic otitis media
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9. How does smoking cause addiction?
Nicotine absorbed from the cigarettes binds to receptors located in the brain
This binding causes the release of Dopamine, acetylcholine…
For detailed information on addiction:
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10. Farming and the manufacture of tobacco in Jordan
Tobacco plantations take up 1% of Jordan’s farming land and approximately 1,500 farmers work on these plantations
There are six domestic companies in Jordan that manufacture tobacco
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11. Smoking in Jordan
21% of teenagers that are between the ages smoke:
15% female
25% male
25% of teenage smokers smoke in the house
25% of nonsmokers have the potential to smoke
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12. Reasons for smoking in Jordan
Smoking is one of the most negative habits among teenagers and adults in Jordan
Why do Jordanian teenagers smoke:
They believed that smoking gives attractive appeal especially that the cigarettes advertisements are always about nice looking young man holding cigarettes or smoking
Like imitating adults
Because tobacco products are easy to get
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13. Legislations to prohibit selling cigarettes to minors
Fighting Smoking
Focusing on the early stages of life to ensure that they don’t smoke when they grow older
Legislations to prohibit selling cigarettes to minors
It is necessary to focus on the early stages of life because:
Behaviors originate from values. Therefore, it is important to develop healthy values at younger ages
Behavior modification is easier and more effective at early stages compared to later stages of life
In addition, smoking can be lessened by:
Activating the laws that prohibit smoking in public areas
Smoke-free transportations
Smoke-free schools
Not smoking in homes or in cars
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14. Fighting Smoking
The development of governmental and non- governmental organizations to help those who want to quit smoking
In 2003, the Jordanian Ministry of Health established a smoking cessation clinic. This clinic’s functions are:
Encouraging smokers to quit smoking
Providing smokers with nicotine alternatives (such as nicotine gum and nicotine filters) that aid smokers quit smoking.
Form support groups of ex-smokers
Provide health education about consequences of smoking
In addition, the Jordanian National Anti-Smoking Society, which is a non-governmental organization, is also complementing the Ministry of Health in campaigning against smoking especially at the primary level of prevention
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15. Fighting Smoking
The Jordanian legislative priorities: Public health promotion
Anti-smoking general laws in Jordan:
Prohibition of cigarette advertisement
Cigarette packs must have warning labels on them.
Article 64 for the year 1977 calls for:
Prohibition of smoking in public areas
Prohibition of manufacturing candy that look like cigarettes
Minors behavior surveillance law for the year 2003 forbids the minors from:
Buying any of tobacco products for self or others
Smoking tobacco or argeelah
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